Red Spotted Garter Snake

[larrylee]

Discussion thread for Red Spotted Garter Snake (http://www.thamnophis.com/caresheets/index.php?title=Red Spotted Garter Snake). If you would like to add a comment, click the Post Reply button.

[KITKAT]

I would love to hear particulars on keeping Oregon Red Spotted garters. I have bought them several times, and can't seem to keep them going.:(

[drache]

I got my first pair two years ago, when we were in the middle of the move and lost the male to an unsecured screen top - he did never turn up, but left the female with "presents". She and all her offspring are doing fine, or at least I haven't heard otherwise. The female took a long time to get to take rodents, but all of them have always been great eaters. I still have one of the "babies", and had her shack up with an unrelated male I traded for one of her brothers, but I think they were both not quite "mature" enough
They're wonderful snakes, and I've found them to be unfussy and robust.
btw - it's nice to see a little more of you again

[adamanteus]

I have a pair of concinnus, which I bought as c/b neonates. I must be honest, they're probably my best feeders and easiest to care for. Maybe I've just been lucky.
My female is very gravid and should give birth in the next few weeks.

[gregmonsta]

I love concinnus. Find them to be fantastic feeders and they grow like weeds. Although I've not had much luck loosing my female earlier in the year and now have eye troubles with Xerxes. .... James :rolleyes: ... I hope she has lots :D

[ssssnakeluvr]

mine have been doing real well!!! very easy to care for...and I am also expecting a large llitter any day now

[ConcinusMan]

I noticed that most discussions concerning this species isn't actually here in this thread. I only recently started exploring the rather largely unused portions of the forum. I see the organization and I think I understand what the intent was.

I wonder if there's something we can do to improve on this. Should we take the most interesting discussions and move them here? Should we just leave well enough alone? I don't know. It would be nice to have all the good species-specific discussions/pics in one location.

I also noticed that the Wiki pages have much room for photos and info. Much potential here for it to become the best "one-stop" place on the web for garter snake info. I'd like to see more people contribute to the wiki pages to that end.

[ConcinusMan]

I'd like to start by showing that even though the name "concinnus" can be taken to mean "stylistically congruous" it doesn't mean there isn't some interesting variety of them. I think that the early explorers that described this species must have named it that because they mostly saw Northwestern garters, which are highly variable, and chose the name "concinnus" because most every one they saw in an area, was pretty darn close to being the same color and "style".

I've been noticing through my own observations and through pictures (with locality info) that this subspecies tends to change it's look as you travel throughout it's range.

For example, in SW WA counties of Clark, Whahkiakum, Pacific, and perhaps a few others adjacent to the Columbia River, it's very common for them to have lateral stripes, and black heads, looking much like T.s. fitchii. It appears that these populations are dimorphic, meaning there are both laterally striped, and regular, in the same population, and both types give birth to both types in the same litter. This isn't limited to WA. It happens in Oregon counties which are adjacent to the Columbia, from Multnomah County, all the way the coast, and also where Oregon's Willamette River meets the Columbia in Multnomah County.

Interestingly enough, the Columbia River gorge serves as path through the barrier of the Cascades range. T.s. fitchii, and many other species that normally only occur east of the Cascades in So. WA, often occur on the west side of the Cascades, in the mouth of the Columbia river gorge. Could it be that the two subspecies intergrade here, or that they intergraded at some time in the distant past? Maybe these concinnus' that carry the laterally striped genes do so because they crossed with T.s. fitchii in the past? Could it be that T.s. concinnus became a separate subspecies only after they were separated from T.s. fitchii after the Cascade range was formed?

http://img836.imageshack.us/img836/3583/mapwashhtmtxtmapwashsma.gif

Clatsop County Oregon (Near the mouth of the Columbia on the Oregon coast) T.s. concinnus' laterally striped adults:
http://www.wildherps.com/images/herps/standard/015752_red-spotted_gartersnake.jpg

T.s. fitchii, Deschutes County, Oregon (east of the cascades) for comparison:
http://www.wildherps.com/images/herps/standard/015713_Valley_gartersnake.jpg

[ConcinusMan]

2 siblings born of a laterally striped adult: (These two belong to Chantel now. Ember and Snap are their names)

http://a.imageshack.us/img442/5114/kibaka012medium.jpg

http://www.thamnophis.com/forum/breeding/7666-bob-masons-thoughts-my-3-stripe-polymorphic-concinnus.html

More pictures/morphs, locality-specific to be posted...

[Stefan-A]

I'd like to start by showing that even though the name "concinnus" can be taken to mean "stylistically congruous" it doesn't mean there isn't some interesting variety of them.
I'll take the opportunity to jump in and point out that the scientific name should be seen more as a tag, than an accurate, all-encompassing description.

[ConcinusMan]

I'll take the opportunity to jump in and point out that the scientific name should be seen more as a tag, than an accurate, all-encompassing description.


I agree. They are still the same species as far as the current classification goes. So are T.s. parietalis and T.s. pickeringii. I think we had the discussion before, that the only thing that makes a subspecies is range and morph differences. Quite often the separation of subspecies is facilitated by a geographic barrier such as a mountain range. It appears that where a geographic barrier does not exist, or is weak, the morph differences tend to also get weak.

http://img832.imageshack.us/img832/955/sirtalis1.jpg
http://img843.imageshack.us/img843/3272/sirtalis2.jpg

[Stefan-A]

I think we had the discussion before, that the only thing that makes a subspecies is range and morph differences.
Phylogenetics, actually.

[ConcinusMan]

I would have used that word. I had to look it up. Where you have a broader scientific vocabulary, I had to go and make an attempt to say what needed to be said, without that word. I know what the two root words mean, but I had never heard them combined into one word.

Now I'm going to have to read all the articles I can find on "Phylogenetics" and learn something.

I hate it when that happens.:rolleyes:

[Stefan-A]

I would have used that word. I had to look it up. Where you have a broader scientific vocabulary, I had to go and make an attempt to say what needed to be said, without that word. I know what the two root words mean, but I had never heard them combined into one word.
Not quite. Morphology deals with structures, while genetics... well, you know what that means. Structures can be similar for a variety of reasons, but there's really only one reason why there are genetic similarities: Common ancestry. Genetics show whether there's gene exchange between two populations and when there isn't any at the moment, it is possible to figure out approximately how long ago it stopped.


offtopic:
My big female wandering garter saw me typing and is now staring at my hands.

[ConcinusMan]

Not quite. Morphology deals with structures, while genetics... well, you know what that means. Structures can be similar for a variety of reasons, but there's really only one reason why there are genetic similarities: Common ancestry. Genetics show whether there's gene exchange between two populations and when there isn't any at the moment, it is possible to figure out approximately how long ago it stopped.


offtopic:
My big female wandering garter saw me typing and is now staring at my hands.

offtopic: You mean, stalking your hands.;)

On topic: http://www.public.iastate.edu/~fjanzen/pdf/02MolEcol.pdf

[Stefan-A]

offtopic: You mean, stalking your hands.;)
That was implied, yes.


On topic: http://www.public.iastate.edu/~fjanzen/pdf/02MolEcol.pdf (http://www.public.iastate.edu/%7Efjanzen/pdf/02MolEcol.pdf)
Seen it, read it.

[ConcinusMan]

T.s concinnus (not laterally striped but found where laterally striped ones are found) representative of the species at the northern extreme of the Willamette Valley and SW WA:

Top of head is black or otherwise very dark, chin and throat is often blue or blue/green. Undersides typically black or mottled with blue/green.

http://img12.imageshack.us/img12/7494/dscn0475medium.jpg
http://img651.imageshack.us/img651/7102/dscn0476medium.jpg

[ConcinusMan]

Benton County Oregon (and southward) snakes are usually very brightly colored and the entire head is usually orange. Labials and throat is sometimes yellowish.

http://www.californiaherps.com/noncal/northwest/nwsnakes/images/tsconcinnusor906juv.jpg

http://www.californiaherps.com/noncal/northwest/nwsnakes/images/tsconcinnusor906cu.jpg

[ConcinusMan]

Some snakes representative of NW Oregon but outside of the Willamette Valley where there tends to be a lot of variety even among the same population:

http://img198.imageshack.us/img198/549/shannonsanerygirl.jpg
http://img219.imageshack.us/img219/7180/5791039.jpg
http://img137.imageshack.us/img137/3140/herptrip014large.jpg

[ConcinusMan]

NW Oregon continued...

Very light colored: "Hypoerythristic"

http://img20.imageshack.us/img20/3360/gedc1264small.jpg

Some others:

http://i206.photobucket.com/albums/bb201/tokaysrnice/Thamnophis/DSC03966.jpg

http://img88.imageshack.us/img88/8742/gedc1542.jpg

[ConcinusMan]

Around the Eugene, Oregon area, the tendency is toward very intense, brightly colored snakes:

http://www.geckosunlimited.com/community/gallery/data/500/concinnus_A.JPG

[ConcinusMan]

Quoted from another thread regarding brightly colored T.s. concinnus'


Amazing photos! Seems to me these subjects would be easy to spot with their colors. Our Easterns blend in nicely with their surroundings and are very difficult to see:D

Well, believe it or not, even the very bright and vivid colored concinnus' blend in and are difficult to spot when they are in vegetation and sitting still. Don't ask me how this is possible, but it's true. In spite of the bright orange, red, yellow, etc... They do blend in and are difficult to spot until they move.

If they are moving very fast, the colors, and especially the spots/stripe in combination, trick your eye. If you were to grab for one that is moving, the trickery causes you to grab behind their actual location, missing them as they escape. The trick then, for a successful capture, is to grab where they appear to be headed, rather than grab where they appear to be.;)

[ConcinusMan]

It has been all but confirmed that this anerythristic morph is a codominant (or incomplete dominant) trait like I suspected. One of these "green" anery's from NW Oregon made it to Europe some years ago and was bred to normals. Greg M. (Gregmonsta) owns one of the offspring, Xerxes. The snake started out normal looking but faded to hypoerythristic as it matured. Furthermore, I know someone in Oregon that has also bred a pair of hypoerythristic snakes from that area (now we know the hypos are codominant anery hets) and got some normal looking babies, but also got a lot of fully anery babies. There are plenty of perfectly normal adults in the area too so it stands to reason that some fully anery's mated with fully normal snakes and the results are offspring that are hypoerythristic as adults.

"green" anery. Can actually vary, some are blue or blue/green in varying intensity.
http://img820.imageshack.us/img820/750/aneryssale039large.jpg
http://img411.imageshack.us/img411/8654/anerys030large.jpg

This hypoerythristic male as it turns out, is likely the result of anery X normal breeding and since the anery trait is codominant, he turned out to be something in between a normal and an anery. He is actually an anery het and with a codominant trait, you can tell the hets from normals.

http://img84.imageshack.us/img84/2042/daddy003large.jpg

So, theoretically, if I were to breed two of these hypoerythristic snakes (not all that spectacular looking themselves) they would produce some offspring that were fully anery.

[ConcinusMan]

Same snake as above: What I find really very interesting is that this male has the same mark as Xerxes. He has an "X" on his side in almost the same location as Xerxes! And it's not the first time I've seen that on snakes from that area of Oregon. It could be a trait associated with the anery genes since the "X" is found on mostly hypoery's or anerys. OK, I admit, that's a stretch.:rolleyes: That brightly colored snake above from Eugene has the "X" too.
http://img196.imageshack.us/img196/9971/daddy008large.jpg

[Mommy2many]

Awesome looking snakes.

[RdubSnider]

Who has the blue anery red spotted?

[ConcinusMan]

You mean this? That would be me.

http://img217.imageshack.us/img217/2683/anerymales001large.jpg

[ConcinusMan]

Disregard. I didn't mean to post here.

[sirtalis01]

That would be me know lol....I have a beautiful 2.1 that will breed next spring.......
Thanks Richard

[RedSidedSPR]

Dude if you produce any blue babies and don't send them to me.....That's awesome. I really want some. Good luck with breeding them!

[ConcinusMan]

It's been done twice already. I had a blue pair, selected for their awesome blueness, and brumated them last winter. They locked up for about 45 minutes but never produced a litter, slugs, or anything. Same thing happened this spring with Shannon. A pair I sent her right out of brumation, locked up a few days after she got them. Again, nothing. No litter. Good luck! I sure would like to see a litter produced. I'm curious to see if the babies start out anery or normal looking. I have seen plenty of babies in that area of Oregon, but never a baby anery. All anery's I have found have always been adults.

[RedSidedSPR]

I would LOOOOOVE to see a litter born.

Concinnus are fast becoming my favorite snake and those anerys are nooo exception.

[kibakiba]

Concinnus are one of my favourites... NWs will always be at the top, though ;)

[sirtalis01]

I hope they prove out... Richard at what temps did you hybernate them and did you have belly heat for the female or room temp when she was gravid?

Link to a vid of the female anery
YouTube - Anery Oregon Red Spotted (http://m.youtube.com/watch?gl=US&hl=en&client=mv-google&v=sgIXeBEmDVQ)

[ConcinusMan]

45-50 degrees F for about 12 weeks. I use overhead heat (basking bulb/heat emitter) so one end of the tank is close to 90 degrees, the other end in the low 70's. Don't know what Shannon did but I did the brumating and sent the snakes to her right out of brumation. They bred within days of her receiving them. Her girl didn't produce anything and niether did mine, in spite of enthusiastic breeding and lockup taking place.

Ironically, I got two litters of normals this season and they were from females which I did not brumate. I only brumated the males. The anery male that produced normals (by breeding with a normal unbrumated female) is the same male that bred with the brumated anery girl so I know he's fertile but the anery girl just didn't produce anything. She didn't ovulate even though she let him lock up.

Don't misunderstand, she never was gravid and that's my point. Both my anery girl and shannon's were brumated, and mated soon after coming out, but neither one of the anery girls got gravid. No slugs, no babies, nothing.